Tony Bray, who leads the Manchester branch of the property advisory Cushman & Wakefield (C&W), reflected on his company’s Insight 500 study and highlighted some of the city’s competitive advantages as a business location.
The research looked at the prospects for office space occupancy around the country, with Manchester deemed one of the UK’s most resilient commercial property markets.
“The biggest factors driving real estate decision process are total property costs, availability of a skilled workforce, accessibility to public transport and proximity of clients and markets,” Bray is quoted as saying in the Manchester Evening News.
“Manchester scores highly on all of these factors and consequently is able to retain existing as well as attracting new businesses to the region.”
C&W’s latest report pointed out that some of the largest office space occupiers in Manchester, including the finance businesses Aviva and Lloyds Banking Group, are considering switching locations in the city over the next few years as they look to maximise the returns on their investments.
Indeed, the study suggests that Manchester’s property market could change quite dramatically in the years to come as leases on 2.5 million square feet of office space expire between 2014 and 2017, according to MEN reports.
Globally, Cushman & Wakefield’s analysts recently rated London as the best city in the world to rent office space and do business. A separate report showed that New York led in attracting real estate investment in the first nine months of 2011, followed by London, which attracted the most foreign investment.
Editor’s notes: Manchester remains the largest UK office market outside London. In 2022, office space was taken up by leasing deals totalling 1.2 million square feet.
This was ahead of the 2021 total and in line with the 10-year average.
In 2023, Manchester’s office space take-up fell just short of 1m square feet at 946,000 square feet. This was lower than 2022’s figure and lower than the five- and 10-year average figures for the city due to a shortage of large deal completions.
However, Manchester office agents remained optimistic about a stronger 2024 due to several large deals due to be completed in the first half of the year.
Office space take-up in Manchester during the second quarter of 2026 totalled 190,483 square feet through 48 letting deals. This brought the 2026 first half-year total to 476,705 square feet, which was 18 per cent below H1 2025 but in line with the five-year H1 average
Grade A and Prime take-up in H1 2026 totalled 315,246 square feet, accounting for 66 per cent of the total take-up, reflecting the ongoing flight to quality by occupiers.
A new headline rent of £48.00 per square foot was achieved at the ‘Island’ scheme when design and engineering consultancy Arcadis signed to rent 10,339 square feet, a 7 per cent increase on the previous £45.00 per square foot.
This deal meant prime rents in Manchester stood 11 per cent above the average prime rent of the Big Nine UK cities.
On September 28th, it was reported that Greater Manchester ranked as the UK’s third most attractive location for foreign direct investment (FDI), according to new research from law firm Irwin Mitchell and the Centre for Economics and Business Research (Cebr).